Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release			                 December 8, 1998	

Biosphere 2: Program Provides Life-Altering Experience for Traverse City's
Rowe 


     APPLETON, WIS. -- Being a geology major, it seemed only fitting that
Traverse City's Jenee Rowe would serve as a "groundbreaker" for a new
science initiative at Lawrence University.   
     Earlier this year, the 1996 graduate of Leelanau Peninsula High School,
became the first Lawrence student to participate in a unique off-campus
study and research program at the famed "Biosphere 2 Center" near Tucson,
Ariz.  
     Rowe was one of 49 students nationally selected for the 16-week long
EARTH SEMESTER.  The innovative program immerses students in
interdisciplinary studies focusing on the Earth as a single, complex
interactive system.  Highlighting the program is access to the $150 million,
7,200,000 cubic-foot sealed glass and spaceframe structure and its distinct
enclosed miniature ecosystems that serve as a giant research laboratory. The
EARTH SEMESTER program is administered by Columbia University.
     "It was so unlike anything else I've ever encountered educationally,"
said Rowe, a junior at Lawrence and the daughter of Kirk and Kathy Rowe,
Traverse City. "I went on the program looking to find answers in hard
science, but I found something I wasn't prepared for -- a lot more
questions.  But that was exciting, too.  I was challenged every single day."
     During the program, Rowe took four classes and conducted her own
independent research on soil compaction and its role with other ecosystems
inside Biosphere 2.  Much of her research centered on "boundary plotting" of
soil types. 	
     In addition to the study program, Rowe was awarded an internship
sponsored by NASA that enabled her to spend an additional eight weeks
working at Biosphere 2.  Her internship revolved around a seemingly
Herculean assignment:  take some aspect, any aspect, of science and make it
understandable -- and beautiful -- for the general public.
     As the daughter of two professional weavers, Rowe has always possessed
an innate affection for art, but her arrival at Lawrence also sparked an
interest in geology.  Her internship challenge provided a unique opportunity
for wedded bliss, marrying her interest in science with her love of art.
     Rowe focused her energies on educating children about the food web.
She designed a scale model of a 50' x 40' playground, complete with
"equipment" in the form of an 8-foot raven, a 5-foot whiptail lizard, two
spring toys, one in the shape of a grasshopper, the other a weevil, and
numerous detritivores -- insect-sized decomposers -- that lay hidden beneath
the sand in an enormous sandbox shaped like a cottonwood leaf.  Panels of
text on the outside as well as the inside of the figures -- the larger ones
were designed for children to crawl into -- explain in both adult and
children's language that particular object's role in the food web.  
     The concept received an encouraging reaction from the executive board
of Biosphere 2 during a presentation Rowe made.  While her playground plans
are still just that at the moment, preliminary steps have begun to turn her
idea into reality.
     "I want to go back and actually build the playground on the Biosphere 2
grounds and be the first to see kids play on it and learn from it," Rowe
said.
     Since returning to Lawrence from Arizona, Rowe has come to the
realization her Biosphere 2 experience was enlightening far beyond a normal
off-campus program. It was actually a life-altering experience. 
     "I've always been told I couldn't do all the things I wanted to do.
That I should focus on one thing.  But everyone at Biosphere 2 encouraged me
to make the link between science and art.  One of my professors had a saying
-- "science as a passion of inquiry and art as an illumination of worlds
worthy of exploration" -- that has been a source of inspiration to me as I
wrestle with both of my interests.   
     "Now I'm determined to somehow bridge the gap between the two
disciplines.  I want to make science accessible by creating learning
materials that aren't dry and morbid, but beautiful and fun as well as
informative.  I don't know how exactly I'm going to do it yet, but that's my
goal."
     And when she reaches her goal, she'll be a new kind of groundbreaker.